On a Cold Dark Sea(83)

“I’m sorry to hear it.”

“Here’s the curious part,” Charlotte said. “I left my card with Esme, to be polite, not because I expected to ever hear from her again. And then, months later, she received a letter from that Swedish girl, Anna. The one you pulled from the water.”

“You don’t say?”

“She lives in Minnesota. Up north somewhere.” Charlotte had meant to look it up on a map, but she’d never gotten around to it. “She’s married, with three children. Apparently, she’s been trying to find me for years, but she didn’t know my surname, only that I was called Charlotte. When she saw a notice of Charles’s death, she thought Esme might know where I was. She wrote to Esme, Esme sent Anna my address, and Anna wrote to me.”

“That’s quite a story.” Mr. Healy looked interested, which was encouraging.

“I gave Anna a coat, on the lifeboat,” Charlotte explained. “You remember how drenched she was—I wanted to warm her up. She tried to give the coat back, on the Carpathia, but you could see just from looking at her that she was desperately poor and needed it far more than me. I told her to keep it and didn’t give it another thought from then on. What I didn’t know was that Reg, my husband . . .” Charlotte stumbled over the word. Should she tell him? Would it make any difference? “He’d hidden fifty pounds in the lining.”

“Goodness.” It was a considerable sum, even today, but it would have been a fortune to a young sailor in 1912.

“Anna intended to return it, but she didn’t know how to find me. Eventually, she gave the money to her husband, and he used it to start his own building firm. Apparently, he’s been very successful. She said it’s all due to me, which of course it isn’t, but I suppose it’s true that the money helped him on his way.”

“Your husband never told you?” Mr. Healy asked.

Charlotte pictured Reg on the day they’d met, showing off the hidden compartment in his jacket where pickpockets couldn’t get to his banknotes. Not long before he had flagged down the lifeboat, Reg had muttered in her ear as he draped his coat around her shoulders. She’d been too angry to pay attention. Was that what he’d been trying to tell her? If so, her stubbornness had denied her the knowledge of his final gift.

“He tried to, I think,” Charlotte said. “But I didn’t hear him. Anna said it would be a weight off her soul if she gave the money back. The only difficulty is, I don’t feel right keeping it.”

“If the money was your husband’s . . .”

“I was never married.”

Four simple words, dissolving the lie Charlotte had lived with for two decades. She wasn’t sure why she’d admitted it.

“I was very much in love with Mr. Evers, despite the fact that he was a swindler and a thief,” Charlotte said. If she was going to be honest, she might as well be thorough. “Or perhaps because he was a swindler and a thief. But he had no interest in marriage. He asked me to pose as his wife so he’d appear more respectable during the voyage. After we were rescued, and the officers were taking down names, I gave mine as Mrs. Reginald Evers because I knew that’s how it appeared on the passenger lists. And then, in New York, I found there were advantages to being a widow. A measure of independence I rather enjoyed. So I remained Mrs. Evers from then on.”

Mr. Healy was silent for a moment, and Charlotte was sure she’d shocked him. Then his lips twitched into the beginning of a smile.

“If you’re not Mrs. Evers, then what shall I call you?”

Charlotte Digby, she thought, but it sounded like a stranger’s name, nothing to do with her. “My friends call me Charlotte.”

She realized instantly that the offer, the sort of flirtatious suggestion she’d have made at a smart London party, was all wrong for this prim working-class home. Mr. Healy dropped his eyes and fiddled with his teacup. Charlotte was aware of having crossed a line—dashed over it, really—and wondered how she’d find her way back.

“Then you must call me Edmund,” he said quietly. “If we are to be friends.”

“Splendid.” Even if Charlotte never saw him again, she liked knowing he thought of her that way. “I promise, I shall be very careful to address you in public as Captain Healy.”

Edmund shook his head, looking perilously close to blushing. The social banter that was Charlotte’s second tongue was, for him, a foreign language. Best to be direct.

“I don’t need the money,” she said. “It feels tainted by Reg’s death. I’d much rather it do some good in the world. I was thinking perhaps a charity, something to do with sailors, and I was hoping you could help me. There must have been a relief fund for the families of Titanic crewmen who died?”

“There were funds, at the time,” Edmund said. “But it’s been twenty years—I doubt any of them are still active.”

Of course, Charlotte thought. Many of the children who had lost their fathers on the Titanic would have become parents themselves by now.

“There is one charity you might consider,” Edmund said. “The Tipton Aid Society. It was started by the widow of a sea captain. A few of my mates were lost in the war, and Mrs. Tipton saw their families were taken care of. Paid the school fees for one promising lad, and now he’s at university.”